Years ago, while I was in the Navy and one of the lucky few Gunner's Mate not to be sent to 'Nam, I was part of a group of sailors touring some Greek ruins near Athens. As was typical of such tours then, and I find them no different in Mexico these days, we were herded onto a bus, driven past the sights, and then dropped off for the foot tour in the middle of a marketplace full of "heyjoes."
One of our more credulous sailors returned to the ship with a "genuine Roman coin" valued at 4 Drachmas, dating from 500 years or so before the birth of Christ, which had been found in the ruins, and was for sale at a fire sale price of $50.00 US, which was a lot of modern Drachmas.
This moderately crude lump of silver actually did bear a resemblance to an ancient Athenian coin (NOT ROMAN!) with one important improvement, it was stamped with the date "452 BC" right under the ruler's head on the obverse of the coin.
Pause for hysterical laughter.
Besides the obvious dating issue, the mix of history would have given even someone like me who had flunked his way through World History some pause. Roman coinage was based on the Denarius not the Drachma, Roman conquest came later than 452 BC, and the value of such a coin would be well above $50.00.
Obviously "Crank" (his nickname) was taken, but my point is that anyone can mint a coin, or have one minted as someone pointed out in a previous point, and all the dates and mint marks printed on it mean only that whoever minted it printed that stuff on there, they do not serve to prove authenticity.
By the way, Crank's coin was indeed real silver, one of the other sailors had some training as a metallurgist and knew how to use acid to test whether the coin was silver or not. It was not assayed for how fine it was, but it was silver. The speculation was that it was a real silver coin that had been melted into a lump and the stamped with a hammer on an anvil in someone's garage or backyard.
Edited to add:
I see that TAM has beat me to the punch with pictures of the real thing, or is that the fake thing, or . . . Now I'm confused too.
